Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals

About Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals

Ben Harper started playing guitar before most kids figure out how to tie their shoes, literally picking up a Weissenborn lap steel at his family's music store in Claremont, California when he was around five. By the time he formed The Innocent Criminals in the mid-90s, he'd already released a couple solo albums, but the band configuration would become his most enduring setup.

The Innocent Criminals coalesced around 1997 with drummer Dean Butterworth, bassist Juan Nelson, and percussionist David Leach. This was the lineup that appeared on "The Will to Live" in 1997, which pushed Harper's sound beyond the acoustic folk-blues of his earlier work into something harder to pin down. The album had "Faded" on it, one of those songs that still shows up in setlists two decades later because it works equally well whispered or screamed.

They hit their commercial peak with "Burn to Shine" in 1999. "Steal My Kisses" became the song everyone knew, the one that got played on radio stations that normally wouldn't touch anything with a slide guitar. It's catchy enough that people forget how musically interesting it actually is, with its odd time signatures and the way Harper's voice moves between singing and something closer to rhythmic speech.

The band's sound pulls from blues, funk, soul, rock, reggae, and folk without ever feeling like a fusion project. Harper plays that Weissenborn lap steel like he's arguing with it, coaxing out sounds that are somehow both aggressive and delicate. His regular electric guitar work leans bluesy but never predictably so.

"Diamonds on the Inside" came out in 2003 and showed a more polished production approach, though songs like "With My Own Two Hands" proved Harper could still write something simple and devastating. The band lineup shifted over the years. Butterworth left for a while to drum for Morrissey, of all people. Michael Ward came in on guitar. The percussion chair rotated between players.

They went on hiatus in the late 2000s while Harper worked on other projects, including releases with Relentless7 and a couple albums with his then-wife Laura Dern's family friend Charlie Musselwhite. The reunion came around 2014 with "Call It What It Is," an album that addressed police violence and systemic racism head-on, particularly in the title track.

These days Harper still tours with some configuration of The Innocent Criminals, though the "innocent criminals" moniker feels more fluid than it used to. The setlists pull from thirty years of material, mixing the lap steel meditations with the full-band burners. He's one of those artists who built a career on being hard to categorize, which means he never had to deal with the expectations that come with fitting neatly into a genre box. His audience stuck around because the music kept moving, even when it moved in directions nobody asked for.

Harper's shows are patient and unhurried. He moves between acoustic guitar and electric with purpose, not spectacle. Crowds go quiet during the quieter moments—you notice people actually listening rather than waiting for the hit. The band locks into grooves that stretch out naturally. There's a sense of communion rather than performance.

Known for Walk Away, Steal My Kisses, Better Way, Oppression, Alone

See Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals Live